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Lot Essay
Joruri junidan soshi is a 15th-century love story of Ushiwakamaru (Minamoto no Yoshitsune [1159-1189]) and Joruri Gozen. After Ushiwakamaru flees from Kyoto to join Fujiwara no Hidehira in Mutsu province, he falls in love with Joruri Gozen, of the wealthy family in Yahagi, Mikawa province, where he spends a night. Joruri was said to be an incarnation of Yakushi Nyorai (Bhaisajyaguru), the Buddha of medicine. When Ushiwakamaru becomes sick in Suruga province, Joruri cures him and he successfully reaches Mutsu. The story was popular in the late 15th century with musical accompaniment called joruri-bushi. Later tales accompanied by music came to be called simply joruri.
Chapters 4, 5 and 6 of the story are usually depicted in ukiyo-e. Ushiwakamaru hears Joruri playing the koto accompanied by her twelve maids as he walks by her mansion. Not hearing a flute, he plays his own. Joruri is taken by the sound and sends her maids outside to call him in. In this pentaptych, Joruri, playing a koto appears on the second panel from the right, and Ushiwakamaru playing a flute appears on the second panel from the left.
For another impression in the Art Institute of Chicago, see Suzuki Juzo and Oka Isaburo, Shikago bijutsukan/The Art Institute of Chicago 3, vol. 6 of Ukiyo-e shuka (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1978), nos. 77-81.
Chapters 4, 5 and 6 of the story are usually depicted in ukiyo-e. Ushiwakamaru hears Joruri playing the koto accompanied by her twelve maids as he walks by her mansion. Not hearing a flute, he plays his own. Joruri is taken by the sound and sends her maids outside to call him in. In this pentaptych, Joruri, playing a koto appears on the second panel from the right, and Ushiwakamaru playing a flute appears on the second panel from the left.
For another impression in the Art Institute of Chicago, see Suzuki Juzo and Oka Isaburo, Shikago bijutsukan/The Art Institute of Chicago 3, vol. 6 of Ukiyo-e shuka (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1978), nos. 77-81.